[1] The first judicial building in the town was the Falkirk Steeple which incorporated several prison cells and was completed in 1814.

It was designed by Thomas Brown II and James Maitland Wardrop in the Scottish baronial style, built by R. & A. Berry of Edinburgh in ashlar stone at a cost of around £7,500, and was completed in October 1868.

[4] The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of four bays facing onto Hope Street.

There was a bartizan to the right of the third bay on the main frontage, and a four-stage circular tower on the south side.

[6][7][8] The old sheriff court was subsequently used as used as the Falkirk Volunteer Centre,[9] before being converted for use as the offices of a firm of funeral directors, Thomas Cuthell & Sons, in 2007.